MOUNTAIN BROOK, Alabama -- Last week, Mountain Brook officials proudly announced the launch of the city’s public Wi-Fi initiative at Overton Park—one that will, with time, expand to all the villages and parks in the city.

But, just how did they manage to set up a wireless network in the middle of a city park?

The answer, said O’Dell, was the creation of a cloud-managed wireless network.

Rather than rely on a company to supply a wireless connection for the various parts of the city, Mountain Brook officials decided to create their own.

“We had a few companies come in and give us some proposals on what it would take to provide the city with wireless connections through them,” said O’Dell, “but we decided as an IT group that we could do this; that we could keep it in house and save tax payer money.”

Collectively, a committee of assembled members, including interested Mountain Brook residents like “tech guru” Bill Whitaker, City Councilman Jesse Vogtle, the Mountain Brook Board of Education, Police Department and Public Works Department, decided that Overton Park would be an ideal “test spot” for the new initiative.

“It’s the smallest area we were interested in connecting,” explained O’Dell. “It will allow us to get the kinks worked out before we transition to larger areas.”

Ensuring the system works as smoothly as possible before expanding to larger areas is especially important, explained O’Dell, because the IT Department is a small, two-man crew.

To set up their own wireless network, the IT group turned to Open-Mesh, an online company that sells the equipment needed to create “low-cost, plug-and-play wireless mesh networks that spread an Internet connection throughout a hotel, apartment, office, campus, café or village.”

According to the company’s website, users can set up a wireless network for up to 90 percent less than the cost of obtaining service through other major internet companies.

Access points, small portable devices that resemble routers, are used to create the “mesh networks” throughout the coverage area. One access point is plugged in to an Ethernet outlet that connects to the internet. A predetermined amount of complementary access points—distributed throughout a set area, like a park, for example—work wirelessly to create a “mesh” connection. Click here to watch a video explanation.

Because the city wanted to create a wireless network inside Overton Park, the IT group solicited the help of Stone & Sons to help configure the necessary electrical components.

Now that the mesh network is setup, the IT department can ensure that the connections remain safe and work properly.

“We have it set up so that the connection is family-friendly,” said O’Dell. “You won’t be able to bring up anything that you would be embarrassed for a young kid to see.”

Other restrictions, said O’Dell, will ensure that the network isn’t clogged with too many users.

Eventually, the city plans to extend the free service to include the areas of English Village, Mountain Brook Village, Overton Village and Cahaba River Park.

Overton Park took about three weeks alone to complete, said O’Dell, so connecting the entire city could take an entire year. Connecting a village, he estimated, will take about a month-and-a-half.

“Personally,” said O’Dell, “my personal belief is that the new wireless initiative will bring people into the city. Maybe they’ll buy a soda or an ice cream, sit out in the park and connect to the internet.”

“The driver on this is that it will help keep us on the cutting edge of technology,” said Vogtle. “The cities that are really getting ahead in Alabama are the ones that offer Wi-Fi to their residents, to their students.”